Kristina Arakelyan

Anna Lapwood: organ recital

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Anna Lapwood, organ recital
Salisbury Cathedral. 23 July 2022

Anna Lapwood is not just a breath of fresh air in the rather stuffy male-dominated world of organ music, but a mighty rushing wind, challenging the orthodoxies of the organ world and fighting, in particular, to support girls and young women in music. Unusually, she only started playing the organ aged 16 (and then rather reluctantly), but by the time she was 21 had completed an Organ Scholarship in Magdelen College, Oxford (the first female to hold that post in the history of the College), and had been appointed as the youngest ever Director of Music at an Oxbridge College. She has a prolific and well-promoted social-media presence, and an enormous range of achievements to date, as evidenced by the lengthy introduction to her recital in Salisbury Cathedral. This was the first time I had heard her play live.

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International Women’s Day: BBC Singers

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

I am the World
Choral and Organ Music for International Women’s Day
BBC Singers, Grace Rossiter, Anna Lapwood
Live from Temple Church and on BBC Radio 3 and iPlayer. 8 March 2022

As part of a series of events to mark International Women’s Day, the BBC Singers, directed by Grace Rossiter, presented a live broadcast of music by leading 21st Century women composers from the Temple Church in London. It included four world premieres, one of which was commissioned by the BBC for the occasion. Alongside the vocal works were pieces played by the organist Anna Lapwood from her own new anthology of commissioned organ pieces by female composers, aimed at younger organists.

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